Date:05/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/05/stories/2009010553561600.htm

Sport - Table Tennis

PSPB set to dominate again

Amitabha Das Sharma

PSPB has the best ranked players in both men’s and women’s categories
Sharath Kamal and Poulami Ghatak are the reigning champions

PATNA: The superiority of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board is in all likelihood to be repeated in the 70th edition of the senior National and inter-Sate table tennis which gets underway here from Monday.

Having in its fold the best ranked players in both men’s and women’s categories Petroleum has always been dominating the team as well as individual championships in the senior Nationals for the last six years.

In fact, Petroleum’s overwhelming reign could be traced to an even longer period but for a break in the 2002, when it lost the men’s team title to Railways.

According to the official records available Petroleum’s record of scoring a double started in 2000 and has continued unmitigated with the other sides merely filling in the numbers.

The Petroleum roll call includes the best names in the men’s section including Achanta Sharath Kamal, Subhajit Saha, Devesh Karia and Zubin Kumar.

Soumyadeep Roy, who is nursing an injury, is the only big omission from the Petroleum men’s team.

The women’s team has Shamini Kumaresan, Neha Agarwal, Poulami Ghatak and Madhurika Patkar the top four in the mid-term rankings issued by the Table Tennis Federation of India.

Sharath Kamal and Poulami Ghatak are the reigning National champions in the individual category.

Second fiddle

Railways, which has been playing the second fiddle almost ever since Petroleum assumed its dominance, will be banking on the form of second ranked Sourav Chakraborty and eighth ranked Anirban Nandi in a bid to regain the title.

The women’s section too is likely to see the dominance of institutional sides with Petroleum and Dena Bank which nudged Railways out of contention — calling the shots in the run-up to the title.

The tournament begins with the team events, which will be held on the first four days. The initial round divides 31 and 26 teams, respectively in the men’s and women’s sections, into eight groups. Two teams from each group progress to the knockout pre-quarterfinals.

There are a host of other teams including Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and West and North Bengal, which are likely to throw up some surprises.

These are the states that bring up players to be later absorbed by the institutional sides. The top four men and women in the National rankings have been seeded directly into the main draw of the individual events.